To people of my generation, the picture show was really another dimension - sensual, whimsical. No uniforms or collective rites, but a place where little boys like me could laugh and feel free.

Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be.

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and the rest of it.

I do not need a producer. I need only a good production manager. I need only a man who will give me money.

I'm very conscious that people dear to me are alive in my imagination - poets in particular.

Gradually I find that my whole soul is merging itself into this business of writing, and especially of writing poetry. I am going to try it; and am going to test, in the most rigid way I know, the awful question whether it is my vocation.

It really hasn't been demonstrated at any level by any major corporation that it can nurture what is euphemistically called creativity.

When I was doing 'In the Heights,' I was the co-music supervisor for 'The Electric Company' on PBS, so I was writing songs all day, doing the show, staying up until 3 A. M. Writing more songs, recording demos in the intermission in my dressing room.